Designing Tools for Developing Minds: The Role of Child Development in Educational Technology

In today’s world, in which technology is playing an increasingly growing role in the lives of children, computer literacy and technological fluency are becoming a necessary national standard. However, developing character traits that serve children to use new tools in a safe way to communicate and connect with others, and providing opportunities for children to envision a better world through the use of technology is just as important. The DevTech Research Group is concerned with developing technologies, interventions, and evaluations within the framework of children’s positive technological development. This paper presents key design principles for researchers investigating educational best practices in technology-rich learning environments.

Strawhacker, A., Portelance, D., Lee, M., & Bers, M.U. (2015). Designing Tools for Developing Minds: The role of child development in educational technology. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC '15). ACM, Boston, MA, USA.